MasterCard Report Finds Jewelry Sales Rose 5.6% During 2009 Holiday Season

Retail sales in the period from November 1 to December 24 showed a 3.6 percent increase compared to 2008, according to SpendingPulse. The New York-based research group measured retail sales across all payment forms, including cash and checks.

The rise in retail sales was fueled by online shopping, which increased 15.5 percent, and electronic purchases, which posted a 5.9 percent increase.

Despite the apparent gains, an extra day of shopping this year over last year's holiday season could decrease the season's year over-year-growth statistics by anywhere from 2 percent to 4 percent, SpendingPulse stated.

"Overall this year, we have seen increasing stability in spending, as opposed to the free-fall of 2008," noted Michael McNamara, vice president of Research and Analysis for SpendingPulse. "This is especially significant considering that prices have been holding up this season, without the broad emergency discounting that consumers benefited from during the 2008 holiday season."

The rise in jewelry sales reported by SpendingPulse is slightly higher than IDEX Online’s analyst Ken Gassman holiday sales forecast for November and December, which predicts about $7.4 billion of revenues for specialty jewelers, an increase of nearly 3 percent compared to last year’s depressed $7.2 billion in sales.